The Twenty-Ninth of May . . . .

. . . . which day is Royal Oak Day or sometimes Oak-Apple Day.



The tune is an old English jig called "The 29th of May" and commemorates on this day the restoration of the Monarchy after the Cromwellian devastation.  The 29th of May was chosen as it was the birthday of King Charles II.

"Parliament had ordered the 29 of May, the King's birthday, to be for ever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny and the King's return to his Government, he entering London that day." 

Wikipedia explains here why "Royal Oak" day rather than restoration day.   Some of the customs surrounding the day which still remain in England are given here.  Those in the mood for a longer read might want to look at what Chambers has to say about today; you can find it here.

It's all to no end,
For the times will not mend
Till the king enjoys his own again.

Veiled

A very charming little video and worth a look.  

But.  

The emphasis on veils exclusively is in my experience misplaced.  When I was a boy, a very long time ago, to be sure, women did not wear veils in church.  They wore proper hats. School girls in the younger grades had little beanies (zuchetti?) that co-ordinated with their school uniforms.  But adult women wore hats.  There may have been a little round piece of lace no bigger than a saucer in the handbag for purposes of "making a visit".  But for Sunday Mass it was a hat and not a veil.

Perhaps the mantilla reigned south of the border but it didn't in my parish.

Rogation Sunday -- with a Marian Connection for May

Bl. John Henry Newman Catholic Church: Rogation Sunday Procession from Ordinary Time Productions on Vimeo.

The visual was our procession last Sunday . . . the audio, um, wasn't.  The videographers were kind enough to say that this was because  the audio equipment couldn't pick up the sound from where they were.

O.K.

On behalf of the schola, we are mollified.

The May Procession and the Queen of the May

There are still a few May processions about but not very many.  And I doubt there are many as well-populated as they used to be.  These were filmed in Inchicore in Ireland.  Alas they were filmed long ago and are silent.  So you might want to click on the final one first and listen to Canon Sydney McEwen while viewing the earlier.








[Addendum:  This link should've been here at the beginning but I lost track of it and only found it now, and rather by accident at that.  It'll give you a short history of the Inchicore May Day Procession.]

Studying Latin

Not just for the neo-Pelagian liturgically obsessive, it would seem.

5 May -- St Pius V

Today in the traditional Roman Rite: the feast of S Pius V, the  pope of Lepanto and Quo Primum . . . and also of that very unfortunate decree releasing English Catholics from their obedience to Queen Elizabeth I, which unleashed a wave of persecution and arguably brought no-one back to the Catholic faith. Although, almost half a millennium later, it does remind those who need reminding that even the best of popes can make serious errors of prudential judgement.

A collect and a hymn for Pope S Pius.

The Smallest Chapel in the British Isles

It's the Costello Memorial Chapel at 16 feet long by 12 feet wide.

 The Costello Memorial Chapel was erected by Edward Costello to mark his devotion to his wife, who died in 1877 at the age of 46. Mr Costello had been a substantial farmer at Dromore a few miles from Carrick, but had moved to the town during the early part of the 1800’s and set himself up in business. He was widely known as a man of great kindness and charity and was partly instrumental in bringing the Marist order of nuns to the town. 

On the death of his wife, Mary Josephine, he had work on the memorial Chapel started. It was to be both a monument to his love and a last resting place for his wife and himself. The little building was dedicated on April 22, 1879 and after the consecration ceremony, the body of Mrs Costello was placed in a sunken space to the left of the entrance, and covered over with a thick slab of specially made glass. The body, which was interred in a metal coffin, had been embalmed when Mrs Costello died, and had been cared for in the interim by the Marist nuns. Mr Costello himself died in March 1891, and his remains also in a metal coffin were placed in a sunken space to the right of the entrance. A thick glass lid was placed over this vault too, and today the inscriptions on both coffins can be read with the aid of a torch. Mass was celebrated in the chapel on every first Friday from the time of its consecration to Mr Costello’s death, but no religious service has taken place in it since.

More here.   And when you get there, do click on the link to photographs.

An Lía Fáil

Genesis 28:x-xxii:

10 Meanwhile Jacob had left Bersabee, and was on his way to Haran. 11 There was a place he reached as nightfall overtook him, so that he must lie down and rest; so he took one of the stones that lay around him, to make a pillow of it, and went to sleep. 12 He dreamed that he saw a ladder standing on the earth, with its top reaching up into heaven; a stairway for the angels of God to go up and come down. 13 Over this ladder the Lord himself leaned down, and spoke to Jacob, I am the Lord, he said, the God of thy father Abraham, the God of Isaac; this ground on which thou liest sleeping is my gift to thee and to thy posterity. 14 Thy race shall be countless as the dust of the earth; to west and east, to north and south thou shalt overflow thy frontiers, till all the families on earth find a blessing in thee, and in this race of thine. 15 I myself will watch over thee wherever thou goest, and bring thee back to this land again; before I have done with thee, all my promises to thee shall be fulfilled.
16 When he awoke from his dream, Jacob said to himself, Why, this is the Lord’s dwelling-place, and I slept here unaware of it! 17 And he shuddered; What a fearsome place is this! said he. This can be nothing other than the house of God; this is the gate of Heaven. 18 So it was that, when he rose in the morning, Jacob took the stone which had been his pillow, and set it up there as a monument, and poured oil upon it; 19 and he called the place Bethel, the House of God, that was called Luza till then. 20 And there he took a vow; If God will be with me, he said, and watch over me on this journey of mine, and give me bread to eat and clothes to cover my back, 21 till at last I return safe to my father’s house, then the Lord shall be my God. 22 This stone, too, which I have set up as a monument, shall be called the House of God. And of all the gifts thou sendest me, a tenth part shall be the offering I make thee.

More, as the bards would have it.